Lightning in a Mason Jar

by Catherine Mann

Changing my identity and leaving behind everything familiar should have been difficult. Traumatic, even. Except it wasn’t. Because from birth, we women aren’t tethered to our names.

As if a woman’s entire worth, her sum total sense of self, were tied into her ring finger and uterus. A Mrs. or a mom.

What a comfortable place to exist, in that cottony swaddle of complacency.

In the silence that followed came a soul-deep realization. Phillip intended to keep me institutionalized forever and take what was mine for himself.

He could steal the money, my name, even a piece of my sanity. But he couldn’t steal me.

Today? My name is Winnie Ballard. I’m from Bent Oak, South Carolina, where I work in the paper mill.

Excitement and terror are close kin. Outwardly they resemble each other. Anticipation and fear both flip the stomach, set the heart racing, dilate the pupils, and accelerate breathing.

The cook had escaped her past life thanks to a secret network that helped women leave abusive relationships. If I was interested, we could speak later.

Smell the flowers. Blow out the candle. Smell the flowers. Blow out the candle.”

Some people had to come to the realization that their parents were imperfect humans who were doing life for the first time too.